DRC-Rwanda: Uganda indexed at the same time as Rwanda

On Monday, hundreds of people demonstrated in the city of Goma, provincial capital of North Kivu in eastern DRC.
They accuse Rwanda and Uganda of hypocrisy in the conflict between the DRC and the armed group M23. They call on the international community to intervene. Military authorities in North Kivu have demanded that the organizers of such events stop doing so, fearing enemy infiltration. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

The demonstration was organized by the civil society in North Kivu province and officials of the PNC (Politique Nationale Congolaise).
They denounce the capture of several localities in Rutshuru territory by the M23 armed group.

“The demonstrators marched to the border between Congo and Rwanda up to the ‘great barrier’ brandishing writings accusing the presidents of Rwanda and Uganda of being hypocrites,” witnesses said.

In the chanted slogans, the demonstrators called for national and international solidarity for the resolution of the security situation as several entities are being seized by the M23. The occupied zones are in the territory of Rutshuru and the city of Bunagana, bordering Uganda.

“We want to show the face of the world the passivity of the international community which is passively observing this aggression that our country is suffering from Rwanda and Uganda. But it is also an opportunity for us to support in a way or on another the FARDC (Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo) committed to the front against the M23. Today we want to form a great people behind this army”, announced the organizers of the demonstration who admit having had the intention to go beyond the border, on Rwandan soil, which the defense and security forces did not allow.

“We are asking the Congolese Head of State to clarify the agreements signed with Rwanda,” an activist from the “Fight for Change (Lucha)” movement said angrily.

During this demonstration, some participants asked the military authorities to train them militarily in order to support the soldiers on the front lines to defend the national territory.

Civil society calls on the population to “fight for their own liberation” as long as “no one liberates a people but themselves”.

“We are here to defend our country. We must fight to reassure ourselves that our land is totally recovered from the hands of the enemy”, declared Mambo Kawaya, president of the civil society of Nyiragongo (neighbouring territory of Rutshuru).

During the demonstration, groups of young people broke into shops and stores belonging to Rwandophones to loot goods. The police quickly intervened.

But a member of the Banyamulenge community was arrested on Monday at Goma airport. Louis Nkumbuyinka was targeted because he is from Tutsi ethnic group, according to our sources.

In a statement released on Monday, the military governor of North Kivu called on the population to avoid “unnecessary” inter-community conflicts. Lieutenant General Ndima Kongba Constant also asks leaders of demonstrations to refrain, insisting that such events are likely to “encourage the infiltration of the enemy”.

Talks postponed

The third session of talks on peace and security in the DRC adjourned to November 21-27.

The Office of the Facilitation on Peace and Security in Eastern DRC has postponed by two weeks the third session of inter-Congolese dialogue initially scheduled for November 7-14 in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.

During these initial dates, the facilitator will be in the climate discussion in Egypt.

In a statement, his office announced that Uhuru Kenyata, former President of Kenya who leads this dialogue known as the Nairobi Process and the Congolese side will not be available on the dates initially agreed.

” The DRC’s special envoy for the Nairobi process must travel for consultations at the United Nations Security Council in New York. At the same time, the EAC (East African Community) Facilitator in the Nairobi Process will participate in the COP27 climate discussion in Egypt in his capacity as Chair of the AU Committee on climate change,” the document reads.

The process continues between the various rebel groups and the Congolese government without the March 23 movement (M23) which is making spectacular progress on the ground.

This movement, mostly made up of Congolese Tutsis, has been excluded from dialogue by the Congolese authorities, who qualify it as a “terrorist group”.

President Paul Kagame, accused by his Congolese counterpart of supporting the rebels without providing proof, wrote on Twitter on Monday that the Luanda (Angola) and Nairobi (Kenya) processes and other international efforts remain the only way to find a solution to the crisis prevailing in the east of the vast country of central Africa.

“We just need to commit to implementing them,” he said.

Even if civil society and pressure groups are beginning to index Uganda, the Congolese authorities remain very cautious about this even if they had denounced – a few months ago – the son of Ugandan President General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, recently deposed from the post commander of the country’s land forces for writing on Twitter that “me and my uncle Kagame will go to the DRC to dismantle and defeat the FDLR genocidaires”.

Uganda has soldiers on Congolese territory in a bilateral framework in order to fight particularly the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) which are fighting the Ugandan government and considered by the region, the United States and the United Nations as a ” terrorist group”.